Anna Updyke did not reply; and a silence succeeded that was interrupted by the rattling of a key in the outer door.
“It is your new father, Anna, come to see you home. Thank you, kind-hearted and most generous-minded girl. I feel the sacrifices that you and your friend are making in my behalf, and shall carry the recollection of them to the grave. On her, I had no claims at all; and on you, but those that are very slight. You have been to me, indeed, most excellent friends, and a great support when both were most needed. Of my own sex, and of the same social level, I do not now see how I should have got on without you. Mrs. Gott is kindness and good-nature themselves; but she is so different from us in a thousand things, that I have often been pained by it. In our intercourse with you, how different! Knowing so much, you pry into nothing. Not a question, not a look to embarrass me; and with a perfect and saint-like reliance on my innocence, were I a sister, your support could not be more warm-hearted or firm.”
After a short pause, in which this singular young woman smiled, and appeared to be talking to herself, she continued, after kissing her companion most affectionately for good-night, and walking with her as far as the door of the gallery, where it had been announced that the doctor was waiting for his step-daughter—
“I wish I knew whether the same faith goes through the connection—Mr. John Wilmeter?”
“Oh! He is persuaded of your entire innocence. It was he who excited so much interest in me, on your behalf, before I had the least idea of our having ever met before.”
“He is a noble-hearted young man, and has many excellent qualities—a little romantic, but none the worse for that, my dear, as you will find in the end. Alas! alas! Those marriages that are made over a rent-roll, or an inventory, need a great deal of something very different from what they possess, to render them happy! Mr. Wilmeter has told me that no evidence could make him believe in my guilt. There is a confidence that might touch a woman’s heart, Anna, did circumstances admit of such a thing. I like that Michael Millington, too; the name is dear to me, as is the race of which he comes. No matter; the world va son train, let us regret and repine as we may. And Uncle Tom, Anna—what do you think of his real opinion? Is it in my favour or not?”
Anna Updyke had detected in Dunscomb a disposition to doubt, and was naturally averse to communicating a fact so unpleasant to her friend. Kissing the latter affectionately, she hurried away to meet McBrain, already waiting for her without. In quitting the dwelling of the building annexed to the gaol, the doctor and Anna met Timms hurrying forward to seek an interview with his client before she retired to rest. An application at once obtained permission for the limb of the law to enter.
“I have come, Miss Mary,” as Timms now called his client, “on what I fear will prove a useless errand; but which I have thought it my duty to see performed, as your best friend, and one of your legal advisers. You have already heard what I had to say on the subject of a certain proposal of the next of kin to withdraw from the prosecution, which will carry with him this Williams, with whom I should think you would, by this time, be heartily disgusted. I come now to say that this offer is repeated with a good deal of emphasis, and that you have still an opportunity of lessening the force that is pressing on your interests, by at least one-half. Williams may well count for more than half of the vigour and shrewdness of what is doing for the State in your case.”
“The proposal must be more distinctly made, and you must let me have a clear view of what is expected from me, Mr. Timms, before I can give any reply,” said Mary Monson. “But you may wish to be alone with me before you are more explicit. I will order my woman to go into the cell.”
“It might be more prudent were we to go into the cell ourselves, and leave your domestic outside. These galleries carry sounds like ear-trumpets; and we never know who may be our next neighbour in a gaol.”